


Dobby Makes an Unlikely Cephalopodic Friend

by Messerfly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Other, Utter Nonsense, this is nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2651069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messerfly/pseuds/Messerfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody needs a shoulder to cry on sometimes, even if the arms that stem from it are covered in suckers.</p><p>(I don't know what this is i wrote it at 4am leave me alone)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dobby Makes an Unlikely Cephalopodic Friend

**Author's Note:**

> The ship is called Squibby. You're all welcome.

It was the 18th of December, a cold, white morning, and a difficult day for an elf who wanted paying.

In the hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations the tensions that simmered between the free elf and those of his kind more content with servitude had been floating rather closer to the surface than usual. All had come to a head when he was heard telling Winky that Dumbledore had offered him the day off, on Christmas of all days. A brief screaming match had occurred (during which a pair of third years had wandered into the kitchen only to run out again with their hands over their ears; House elf arguments tend to take place at a higher pitch than most humans will ever hear in their lifetimes*) and had resulted in Dobby being forcibly removed from the Hogwarts kitchen by three elves and a bit of binding magic. As it was, he was taking a walk down to the lake in order to wait out the other house elves anger.

  
The walk was more like a wade in the soft powder, and with the effects of binding magic holding him he couldn't just apparate out of it (not that he would ever use his magic for his own needs. It was illegal in addition to being abhorrent and selfish). By the time he arrived at the lake he was quite tired, and had to perch his small body on a snowdrift to rest a while.

He took this opportunity to admire the beauty of the soft white flakes which were beginning to fall around him, and his eyes had just settled on one which he could have sworn was the exact likeness of Harry Potter (if Harry Potter had six spokes and was made of ice) when something caught his eye out in the lake.

He stared for a while, not quite sure what he had seen, or even, if he had seen anything, when he saw a definite ripple on the surface of the water. Before he was given the chance to wonder any more he saw something arise from the steely grey depths. It was a… tentacle? Of course he had heard about the giant squid that lived in the lake, but as his housekeeping duties had kept him inside he had never actually gotten the chance to see it for himself.

It was more beautiful than he could ever have imagined, water dripping off pearlescent red flesh, suckers arranged neatly on the underside of tentacles thicker than his whole body was. He was struck with awe at the sight of this mighty creature, and perhaps it felt him there, for he could see its colossal shape start to glide towards him under the water. He watched with baited breath as it swam closer until finally he was level with its dinner plate sized eye.

He could tell it was confused, and he doubted if it had ever seen a house elf before. Old habits compelled him, and in a state of slight panic he bowed and squeaked out the words

"Dobby is at your service, sir." He then added "Or madam" when he realised he wasn’t exactly sure which one was applicable.

"Dobby is a house elf, from the kitchens, and has been asked to leave by his fellow elves for being offered the day off on Christmas, which of course Dobby would never take, because Christmastime is one of the busiest times for a house elf and Dobby would never shirk his duty even if he does want paying for it and he is very tired of the other house-elves treating him like- " Dobby’s normally high-pitched voice squeaked as it cracked into an even shriller range than normal, and he realized he had almost told more to a squid (who was a complete stranger, no less) than he had ever spoken to another soul in his life. He stopped abruptly and sputtered out

"Dobby’s sincerest apologies, he does not know what came over him", but as he gazed into the eyes of the giant squid, he was surprised to see nothing but sympathy there.

"Although Dobby supposes you must also know what it is to feel as if you were a freak of nature." he said, more gently, as he sat back down on the snowdrift. Dobby stayed for a while after that, just talking to the squid, as the snow drifted down around them. He would have denied it, but when the binding magic finally broke down an hour later he felt a small pang of grief at having to apparate back to the heat of the kitchens and the mountain of work that awaited him, too afraid to make a promise to return.

  
It was well he didn't make that promise, for he never went back to that particular bank. But if he ever passed a window on the west side of the castle and looked out over the lake it would have been in memory of that day. Sometimes he could even have sworn that he saw a shimmering tentacle rise out of the water, as if waving mournfully at a long missed friend.

And if the squid waited for a tiny house elf to return to to the lakeside and speak to it like on that snowy day in mid-december when it finally felt like it wasn't alone (Even after the day the people gathered by the lake to put the dead man in the stone, and further, as the taste of the magic changed and after the day with all the lights and loud vibrations and blood all through the water (the bodies were everywhere, on the lawn, in the shallows)) nobody ever knew. Because it was a squid. And squids don’t speak English.

  
The End.

 

*In fact, due to the rarity of this occurence it is believed by some that house-elf screams contain magical properties, and should be sought out and bottled. This belief was particularly prevalent in the mid seventeenth century, and it was not uncommon to find alchemists subtly casting irritation charms in the kitchens of large establishments in order to provoke the house elves into arguing. This seldom worked, as house elves are placid, emotionally repressed creatures, and take to argument only when they feel their work is threatened. In the rare cases where the alchemist succeeded in their provocation of the house elves, they ended up with a very shrill sound contained in a bottle** and more often than not, damaged eardrums.

**Unfortunately this would have been the entirety of the bottle’s contents (barring dregs of ale in the case of some practitioners), as it was later proven by Faldrig the Flabby in his largely ignored 1709 treatise on domestic magic that house elf shrieks do not in fact contain any magical properties whatsoever. Many deaf alchemists were upset by this.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit where credit is due, the ship name came from the blog destieldrabblesdaily on tumblr. Also on that blog was the late night discussion that inspired me to write this. Whether that should ever have happened is up to you to decide.


End file.
